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Old 02-22-2012, 11:57 AM   #38
Lee Salzman
Join Date: Nov 2005
Posts: 406
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Re: A hodgepodge system, in an information age.

Quote:
Jason Casteel wrote: View Post
Thanks for the follow-up.

I think my post makes clear what I believe is important. The only thing I would like to add is that I think hard, honest practice should be backed up by a clear focus on the underlying principles of the art, the IS/IT stuff that gets talked about around here so much. I think every style should have a set of taiso of some sort that can be used to explain, test and build the core body usage/skills of the art separate from the waza. Exercises, partner drills, breathing practice, etc, all bound together by hard, honest practice. I think that type of environment can support anyone who might come to aikido, all under one roof.
Putting on my Devil's Advocate Hat (or dunce cap, as it might be), and in view of Chris Hein's questions again...

While you have defined hard work in a way that is probably understood immediately by most, I still find your definition of what IS is doing here really vague.

To put this in context, I work on stuff in my solitary practice that could be IS or could be the farthest thing from it, nor could I ever tell if it was based on any discussion that has taken place here on AikiWeb amongst any people - I leave nobody spared, not even the usual suspects, some of whom I have worked with in person and did the whole IHTBF thing. I literally have no idea whatsoever whether it is.

However, what I do currently work on in my solo practice is 100% conceptually clear to me what I am working toward, not an ounce of doubt or misunderstanding, and yet making sure my body throughout its entirety adheres to that concept is the most difficult physical-learning undertaking I have ever encountered in my life. I more often than not walk out of training sessions with my teacher, having done nothing but practice on my own body, without even resistance (not to imply there are sessions without resistance, but counterintuitively they hide flaws better than solitary work), yet having completely and utterly failed at getting some little part to express what it needs to. There's always something wrong, no real opportunity to ever get self-satisfied about progress, because the progression is so damned merciless, there is definitely nothing mentally fun about it. My ego gets crushed into a bloody, mutilated pulp, and I question my worth as a human being and why the hell am I doing this because my teacher must loathe how retarded I am or any number of mental bludgeons I beat myself over the mind with from a session like that...

But I still go back, every time, and for some reason I don't get turned away either. And yet if I didn't have a 100% clear conception of what it was I was trying to achieve? I would have quit almost from the start because there is no way in hell I would keep going back, it would be utter self-destructive lunacy.

So, yeah, how do you thus define exactly what IS, conceptually, and what aiki is, and how aikido expresses it? Not in terms of, oh, do these exercises, or feel that guy, but where even a novice can hear an explanation and go, yes, yes, I understand, I'd have to be an idiot to not understand. It's okay if the difficulty of the training makes them feel like an idiot, but the explanations never should. But as far as IS and aiki goes, I've never seen clear explanations, not even in person, from proponents of them... So I think there's a massive problem there.
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